State of Play

Posted on September 1, 2009 at 8:00 am

You need six things for a successful Washington thriller: a reporter, a Congressman, a dead girl, a choleric editor, some ugly secrets, and, for some reason, a chase inside a parking garage, not so sure why that last one seems to be so indispensable. “State of Play” has them all. You don’t necessarily need authentic Washington locations, but “State of Play” has that, too, and it is a pleasure to see more than the monuments, with real-life Washington landmarks like Ben’s Chili Bowl and the Americana Hotel providing an extra layer of realism.

There may be some of-the-moment gloss on this sharp Washington thriller, with references to hard times for newspapers and boom times for outsourcing national security, but its essence is struggles between power and accountability and that are always at the intersection of politics, money, and journalism and of course the movies about them, too.

Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck play former roommates with a lot of baggage — Crowe is a reporter for the “Washington Globe” and we can tell he has integrity because his apartment, car, hair, and clothes are such a mess no one would otherwise keep him around. The traditional cub reporter with more spirit than experience but who will show surprising grit and ingenuity before the third act has evolved into a blogger (Rachel McAdams). The traditional handsome young Congressman who may have compromised his ideals and his disappointed wife are played by Ben Affleck (good) and Robin Wright Penn (better). And the traditional peppery newspaper editor who wants copy NOW because every hour we delay print costs some astronomical sum and we’re losing our readers, dammit! (yes, that tradition stretches back to the movies of the 1930’s) is played with frosty fury by Helen Mirren.

There are chase scenes, including one in a parking lot, another standard for Washington thrillers. But the up to the minute details, sharp talk, smooth performances, and a couple of surprising twists hold the interest and keep us engaged.

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He’s Just Not That Into You

Posted on June 2, 2009 at 8:00 am

It turns out that it all goes back to the playground. What did our moms tell us when boys teased us and knocked us down? “He only does it because he likes you!” This leads to two consequences. First, women lose the ability to apply common sense in interpreting the signals about level of interest sent by men. Second, men get positive reinforcement for sending those mixed signals. Add in a couple of doses of fear of getting hurt and fear of being alone, and a just a dash of fear of missing out on The One and you have “He’s Just Not That Into You,” a movie inspired by a non-fiction book inspired by one line on the television series “Sex and the City.”

On that episode, a man named Berger (Ron Livingston) took pity on a character who was coming up with increasingly far-fetched excuses for a man’s turning down her invitation to come up to her apartment after a date. “He’s just not that into you,” said Berger. This was a revelation. The episode attracted so much attention it led to a non-fiction book (written by a male-female team), and that led to this daisy-chain of stories about love old and new, sweet and sad, funny and wise.

At the heart of the story is Gigi (“Big Love’s” Ginnifer Goodwin), an ever-hopeful sort who is always willing to see the glass as half full even if there is nothing in it at all. He hasn’t called? He’s busy at work or he had a sudden business trip. Or maybe he forgot her number. She is helped in this romantic delusion by her friends, who try to cheer her up by persuading her that men behave like this all the time when they are interested and they always have these hopeful little urban legends about someone’s second cousin’s college roommate who thought that a guy wasn’t calling but then they got married and lived happily ever after.

It takes a cynical bar manager named Alex (Justin Long) to give Gigi the movie title advice, and that leads to some more bracing honestly. It all boils down to this: the only signal that matters is the choices people actually make. If he wants to talk to you, he will call. If he wants to see you, he will make it unequivocally clear. Same for women, by the way.

Meanwhile, a young married couple (Jennifer Connelly and Bradley Cooper) is dealing with stress on two levels, external and internal. Their new home is being completely gutted and renovated. And he is feeling attracted to a vixenish young singer (Scarlett Johansson) and to the possibilities of a life without constraints and promises. An ad saleswoman for a gay men’s newspaper (co-producer Drew Barrymore) says that modern technology has just created more ways to keep from talking to each other — email, texting, voicemail, and myspace. She gets a lot of support and some good advice from her sympathetic co-workers. And another couple (Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck) gets along just fine on every issue except for one — she wants to get married and he does not.

You will get a sense for which side this film takes in the gender wars when you look at the cast — the big names and familiar faces are mostly on the female side. But the performers are all attractive and capable and director Ken Kwapis (“Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”) knows how to keep several stories going at once. He manages his talented cast well and he skillfully handles the material so that it stays comic without losing sympathy for the characters. The film balances humor with some sharply observed moments and painfully familiar conversations that are sure to provoke some lively debates on the way home from the theater.

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Changing Lanes

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Most thrillers have audiences asking themselves what the characters will do next. This one will have them asking themselves what they might do in this situation, because it is a movie about how close all of us are to abandoning the thin veneer of civilization and breaking all the rules to lash out at each other. This is a harsh thriller about two men whose moral bearings are dislodged by a cataclysmic accident.

Ben Affleck plays Gavin Banek, a successful Manhattan attorney involved in a bitter contest over the control of a charitable foundation. On his way to court, he literally runs into Doyle Gipson, (Samuel L. Jackson), an insurance agent with a desperate plan to keep his estranged wife from leaving town with his children. Gavin, in a hurry, tries to pay the damages up front with a blank check. Doyle, wanting to straighten out his life, wants to swap insurance numbers. Haste and anxiety boil over into anger, and the confrontation leaves Doyle stranded without a ride.

The chance meeting has serious consequences for both characters. Doyle was on his way to family court. He is a recovering alcoholic, who is trying to start a new life. He is on his way to court to show his ex- wife and sons that he is buying a house, so that they will not move to Oregon. The plan is a surprise, to be delivered at the custody hearing he was en route to, when he collided with Gavin.

Gavin reaches court in time but without a crucial document, left at the scene of the accident with Doyle. Events quickly escalate out of control. Without the document, Gavin and his legal partners (one his father-in-law), are vulnerable to charges of fraud; Doyle, because of the accident, arrives late to family court and loses visitation rights with his children.

They confront each other again, but Doyle is too angry about losing his case to give Gavin the file. Gavin lies to the partners about the file to buy time, while Doyle goes into a bar to have a drink. Each blames the other for his troubles and wants revenge. What follows is a battle of wits, with each character striking at the other with all of his available resources, culminating in a second highway crash.

“Changing Lanes” is an explicit allegory about how the flaws of good people can bring them to the brink of murder. Both Gavin and Doyle are appealing, seemingly decent characters. But Gavin lacks the maturity to take full responsibility for his actions, while Doyle’s rage — an even more profound addiction than his alcoholism — overwhelms his good sense.

They both hover at the point of forgiveness, but neither is willing to let go of their self-righteous indignation and make mature choices. The characters along the way each present them with choices, each representing a world view that Gavin and Doyle must adopt or reject. Sidney Pollack (best known as a director) is outstanding as Gavin’s corrupt boss and there are other strong supporting performances by Toni Collette, William Hurt, and Amanda Peet.

Parents should know that this film involves a lot of realistic emotional violence which can be upsetting. A family is separated by the alcoholism of a parent, and there is an extremely harrowing scene of a father being forcibly removed from his son’s school. There is also a later confrontation between the father and mother where the father is told he’ll never see the children again. The physical violence in the film is brief and mild by modern standards, but realistic. There are religious references (the movie takes place on Good Friday) that some families will find awkward or heavy-handed.

Families who see this movie should talk about the characters’ conflicting impulses to forgive and to get revenge. What finally convinces Doyle to give the file back? What did his friend mean when he told Doyle “Alcohol was never really your drug of choice?” Why was Gavin unwilling to go to Texas to do his pro-bono work, and what do you make of his final speech to his father-in law? In a way, this is a movie about the way people do and don’t listen to each other and how that makes us feel. Where do we see that theme most clearly? Why was Gavin able to ignore the reality of his situation? Was the end of the film realistic? Parents will want to discuss safe driving habits with their teens after seeing this film as well.

Families who enjoyed this movie might also want to look at “Panic Room,” which also deals with divorced families and with emotions running out of control.

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The Sum of All Fears

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:17 am

Part of the magic of movies is the way they make us not just willing – even eager to suspend all kinds of disbelief. It isn’t just that we are willing to believe that Jet Li can knock out a guy with one kick or that Harry Potter can soar through a Quidditch match on his broomstick – we want to. That’s part of what movies are for.

And we have lived through five different actors asking for martinis that are shaken, not stirred, as James Bond – so far. So I don’t think audiences will have any problem accepting the fact that Russia analyst Jack Ryan of the CIA, played by 50-something Harrison Ford in two previous films set in the 1990’s based on Tom Clancy novels (and Alec Baldwin in a third) has now lost some thirty years and turned into Ben Affleck. There may not be much suspense in the love story – we already know who Jack Ryan marries – but that isn’t what the movie is about.

What it is about is a new Russian president. The U.S. is concerned that he is a hard-liner. Ryan believes that he is only trying to sound tough to get the support of hard-liners in the Russian government. U.S. officials get even more concerned when Chechnya is hit with chemical weapons. And then the U.S. is attacked with an atomic bomb and it seems that America’s only choice is to retaliate. It is up to Jack Ryan to save the world.

The movie is ably done, a big time Hollywood production with big time actors (Morgan Freeman as the head of the CIA, James Cromwell as the U.S. President), and big time special effects. Everything is very professional. But as easy as it is to settle back with our popcorn and adjust our notion of a Jack Ryan of the 21st century, there are some parts of the story that are so hard to accept that they seem to violate the covenant between the audience and mainstream movies. There is a level of destruction that might be acceptable in a book but feels excessive to the point of pornography on screen, even more so in an era of suicide bombings and terrorism. The fact that the bad guys in this movie are so much less scary than the ones on the news adds to the sense that the story is more about sensation than about sense. And the ultimate resolution does not feel either ultimate or resolved. Movies like these need interesting villains and satisfying conclusions. Like people who make roller coasters, they need to strike a balance between making us pleasantly dizzy and making us sick. On that scale and at this time, this movie does not work.

Parents should know that the movie has a lot of graphic violence and destruction of unimaginable proportions. There is prolonged, intense peril and characters die. Characters use very strong language, drink and smoke. There is a non-graphic sexual situation.

Families who see this movie should talk about how people at any level, from heads of state to siblings, learn to trust one another.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the other Jack Ryan movies (and the other Jack Ryans), especially “The Hunt for Red October” and “Patriot Games.” Two other movies, both made in 1964, dealt with the prospect of an accidental missile attack by the U.S. on Russia and both are worth watching. One is the thoughtful drama “Failsafe” and the other is the unforgettable classic, “Dr. Strangelove.”

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Action/Adventure Based on a book Remake

Armageddon

Posted on December 13, 2002 at 5:16 am

The summer thrill ride movie is becoming as much of a 4th of July tradition as the picnic and the fireworks, and the 1998 version is “Armageddon,” the second movie of the year about a meteor headed toward earth. While the plot line is predictable (think “Dirty Dozen” crossed with “The Right Stuff”) and concocted almost by recipe (take one tough but lovable hero — Bruce Willis in his “Die Hard” mode — and add in a lovably diverse group of misfits, then wisecracks to taste and just a touch of sentiment and a dash of young love for seasoning), the 10-14 year olds in your household (and the 10-14 year old in many of us) will find that it delivers as a summer explosion movie. Parents should know that there are a few sexual references (one major conflict is that the main character’s daughter is sleeping with one of his men) and some strong language, but it is the intensity of the action that is the real cause of the PG-13 rating. Parents should also note that several major characters die. The age recommendation is only for kids who enjoy that kind of roller-coaster style excitement. Families should also discuss some of the moral questions that arise as people have to take risks and make sacrifices for the greater good.

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